


Fool's Mate

by SunBox



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 0 story, Canon Universe, Chess, Chess Metaphors, Conversations, It's Been Sitting on My Desktop so I Decided to Put It Here, Levi/Eren Yeager-centric, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Protective Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Spoilers, canonverse, ereri, four years later, riren - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 16:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13594359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunBox/pseuds/SunBox
Summary: “Sometimes…” Eren started, taking his other pawn and bringing it two fields up from its starting position, “…sometimes I wonder if you’re really talking about the chess game. Pawn to f4.”Just a game of chess with no plot whatsoever. Canonverse.





	Fool's Mate

Sometimes, Eren wondered  whether it was a sin – his prolonged staring. His hand looked so delicate as it held that dark piece up, using only his thumb and index finger. The hands were pale, blue veins jumping through the dotted surface, scratched, torn, cut, scarred – yet they still seemed beautiful, those hands that held the truth of the harsh reality they lived in. His fingernails were cut to their minimal size, some spots beneath them bluish in color, Eren realized as the low light of that one small burning candle kept trying to lighten the dark room they were in. He watched the strong hand carefully drop his horse from 5g to 3f, devouring Eren’s rook. The brunet showed a small smile, but his captain noticed the small crease forming between his brows. Eren didn’t really think, though. Perhaps he would have been able to win that day, and any other day, but his interest never lay in the game itself – no matter how much it bothered him when he actually lost.

The captain’s hand retreated swiftly as it went to grab the top of his white teacup right in front of him. The man lifted the cup with all of his fingers and brought it to his plump lips, sipping from the cup calmly and watching Eren as he did so, as if he knew it would help to confuse the young adult – wasn’t it already enough that Eren had picked up the habit of holding his cup Levi’s way? The teen waited for his captain to drink up before he put the cup down again and propped himself against the old wooden ebony table the board was at, calmly looking up to meet Eren’s eyes.

“Well…?” the captain’s voice was low as he spoke, “Are you planning on falling asleep here again or are you just contemplating all of the possibilities your choice could bring with it?”

“I’m trying, okay? Give me a minute here…” Eren responded, looking at the petite man’s glistening lip whilst trying to think of his next move at the same time. He didn’t have much left, though. Two pawns, one rook, both of his knights and his king, naturally. Levi had the habit of attacking his queen head on, much to Eren’s frustration. Other than that, he couldn’t really focus on the game in front of him. Levi kept watching him for a while, surveying Eren’s concentrated expression, before he leaned back into his red, comfortable chair again – the one he always slept in. Crossing his arms over his chest and crossing his muscular legs under the table gingerly, he forced Eren’s eyes to go meet his and forget the solution to his struggles with the game.

“This is the third night in a row you come in here uninvited”, he sighed, tilting his head to the side and watching the brunet intently as he spoke, “and in the midst of the night too. Eren. It’s not that I particularly mind it since I can’t sleep myself… but you, at such an age, should have better things to do than sneak into my room at night, right? To top it all off, the only thing we ever do is play chess. And we both know you suck at it.”

The brunet smirked before leaning forward to move his remaining rook forwards, obviously targeting Levi’s queen and, by extension, his king. The brunet’s fervent gaze met Levi’s cool one, and Eren refused to look away; he just backed off slowly, leaning back into his own chair, the one he had never bothered to return to its original location, and the captain was too stubborn to clean up after him. So it stayed.

“Bold move”, the captain silently commented, watching his remaining chess pieces in a calculating way. Eren knew his statement wasn’t even remotely close to a compliment because, frankly, that bold move was pretty reckless and had no thought put behind it, but he took it as one anyway.

“Actually, no. I don’t have anything better to do. I could stay in my room and keep watching the ceiling, if that’s what you think is better. Or I could get out again and watch the stars, but you’d come to pick me up pretty soon again, calling me an idiotic philosopher that ‘doesn’t have anything better to do than stare into potential nothingness’, as I recall... Right?” the teal-eyed man showed a coy smile as his sight fell to the chess board again, “Please. I need a distraction of some sorts.”

“At least you could do something productive… Like train for the upcoming mission a little more. The ships have ceased attacking, which means they are most likely planning a new attack… No one knows what they’ll think of next… flying titans?”

Eren snorted at his captain’s bad attempt at humor, but didn’t counter. He watched Levi bite his lower lip subconsciously as his soft gaze fixed on the royal pair, and Eren could only imagine how many thoughts at once appeared in the man’s brain as he analyzed everything, every corner and every piece, even if it was just a game. It was as if his life depended on it, and it made Eren’s mind go crazy as well, but for an entirely different reason. A barely visible wrinkle made its way to his somehow still youthful face, his lips parting as if he wanted to say something, but gave up eventually. It were moments like these that Eren could really enjoy the captain’s presence – when Levi was too focused to notice that he was being stared at. Eren wasn’t particularly subtle about his glances, but he still made sure not to come off as obsessed. He’d worship Levi’s perfect soul silently, and would draw his form out only when no one else was around. Though, the more time he spent with him, the more he just wanted him close to himself – not in his thoughts.

“Other than that…” Levi started, so Eren quickly looked down at the brown and white board game on front of him, “…you could sneak into anyone’s room. It doesn’t make sense for you to just ‘crash’ at my place.”

Eren chuckled, looking up at Levi’s small pointy nose. It was wrinkled, Eren noticed, so Levi must have had some difficulties choosing his next move.

“It’s forbidden to enter others’ rooms as far as I know.”

“And it isn’t forbidden to visit your captain at midnight, you’re saying?”

“I wouldn’t have visited if you wouldn’t have let me in”, the teen responded, searching for the man’s dull eyes that emitted an unusual shine in them that night, “So the fact that I’m here goes entirely to you.”

The corners of Levi’s lips crooked upwards as the man kept looking into Eren’s deep eyes. He took his prized brown queen and brought it closer to the rook, but stopped two fields before actually reaching it. It was as if Levi was giving it up, a thing he would never do. The teen searched Levi’s eyes for some kind of sign, for a clue as to why he would offer him his queen, but the captain just leaned back into his chair, propping his arm against the arm of the chair and leaning his cheek into his fist, watching Eren from the side carefully, calculatingly, as if trying to predict what the brunet would do in such a situation. The bait was there, and Eren couldn’t see why, exactly. No matter which way he looked at it, Levi didn’t have a chance to win this game by choosing that move. But Levi was stubborn – even more so than Eren – and the brunet knew he hated losing just as much as him, which is why he never lost.

“You seem focused, for once”, the captain remarked, and Eren furrowed his brows at him, but the smirk that he showed ruined the ruse.

“What do you mean… focused? I’m always focused on something… more or less”, he explained, his thin fingers moving towards his rook again, but stopping halfway. It had to be a trick – Eren knew it. But maybe Levi only wanted him to believe that. Maybe the captain was purposely messing with his head, for once. The young brunet felt wary all of a sudden. If he took the bait, nothing fatal would happen for sure, because Levi’s figurines weren’t positioned in a way that could harm him. But what if Levi had a bigger picture in mind, what if he had already predicted which choice Eren would make? What if he was just playing with him, tossing him an opportunity and grabbing it away if Eren were to actually believe he could do it, for once? The captain never once made a game of chess easy for Eren – he had let Armin win once, to nurture his low self-esteem – but _not_ for Eren, and the teen suspected why. There was no way he could be letting him win now, no matter how much he cared. Eren’s thoughts suddenly came to a halt. He straightened again, watching the petite man that sat across him. Levi’s sight was on the floor, his lips stretching out as he was thinking about something, his brows furrowed. Looking around, Eren finally acknowledged that he was, indeed, sitting in Levi’s room, in that same room where he brought tea into at the start of his career. The room was the same as always – pristinely clean, and had the sweet, yet bitter scent of strong black tea in every corner of it. Bookshelves upon bookshelves rested in the back, with old, partly torn books decorating them. The captain had once told him that he had read every single book he possessed not once, but three times – every single one but the Bible, which was stuffed into the corner, a few yellow pages escaping its hard covers. The room had no carpet, naturally, but Eren always remembered to take off his boots before entering the captain’s office; it was an unspoken rule Eren was never alluded to, but he still did it. A few cupboards were standing in one corner of the room. They were dark brown in color and served the purpose of containing small clean cups and hundreds of teabags and leaves. Eren still discreetly remembered the time the captain had actually trusted him enough to leave him in his room alone whilst Levi would go talk to some of the higher-ups, but Eren, being the dumb teen that he was back then, went to go explore the room. He remembered opening the bottom drawer of the far left cupboard, pulling out a neat folder that contained that contained tea leaves sorted in an alphabetical order. The captain made him clean the chimney as punishment, but he still started talking about his collection at some point. And even though Eren was completely covered in ashes he clearly saw the spark in Levi’s eyes as he talked about the tea leaves – and the tea shop he hoped to open one day.

The white room also had a bed in it, but its purpose was unknown. Eren really didn’t get why it was there, since Levi never slept in it because he preferred to sleep in his chair, with a book in his lap or on his face, or on the floor which Eren would pick up if he’d catch the man sleeping. He recalled coming into the captain’s room once when he was still fifteen, begging to be allowed to stay for the night. The look on Levi’s face was priceless, but the captain didn’t take long to understand what the brunet had meant. Levi left at some point, the teen realized when he woke up, but a cup of tea was already waiting for him on the table – the exact table that was in front of them now. Eren’s hands passed over the smooth, frayed structure of the board game, a sweet smile forming on his face as he remembered the first time when Levi brought it to light. The captain had reached under the bed whilst cleaning, pulling out the game and glaring at it as if it had done wrong to him. The brunet came closer to inspect the chess board, only for Levi to blow all the dust right into his face and then smirk at him.

That was four years ago already.

Eren’s eyes rushed to meet Levi’s face again – he hadn’t changed at all in that time. The only thing that stuck out on him was that small strand of nickel gray hair Levi continuously kept trying to behind his silky jet black hair, but he really didn’t care about it as much in the middle of the night. Suddenly, the brunet realized that Levi was looking at him intently, wonder that could be described as childlike peeping at him from somewhere in those steel blue eyes of his.

“Is something the matter?” Levi asked, crossing his arms over his chest again as he continued, “Is there something on my face?”

“What? N-No, sir…” Eren stuttered, brightly smiling at the raven-haired man. The captain’s eyes narrowed dangerously, that childlike wonder turning into something Eren would categorize under ‘murderous thoughts’.

“You’ve been staring at me”, Levi stated nonchalantly, though his eyes spoke in another way. Eren’s eyes wandered up to Levi’s hair, then down to his open cravat that was hanging from each side of his strong neck, then back up to meet his bored-looking eyes,

“Tch”, the captain clicked his tongue and raised a brow, “you’re staring at it again, eh?”

“N-No! I mean, yes, but… There’s nothing wrong with it!” Eren tried to defend himself, “It… it suits you, sir…”

 “If it makes you call me ‘sir’ again after such a long time, I might consider showing it more often… Who knows, perhaps the others start respecting me again”, he silently said and put his hand at the armrest of his chair again, “Eren. What happened…?”

Silence.

“Most of the time, you act so distant… You don’t let anyone talk to you and go off somewhere on your own. Your friends came to me multiple times, asking me where you are and what you’ve been up to… and I can never answer them. You know it’s a big deal when Mikasa actually comes up to me and asks me about the whereabouts of her dear friend.”

Eren’s sight fell to the chessboard, refusing to look at Levi’s face as he spoke.

“And then, there are times when you start acting like your old self. The reckless idiot that would cry upon stubbing his toe and then swear revenge to the object that caused the pain. I… know it’s been hard for you ever since you’ve found out that…”

“Pawn to b4.”

Levi stopped to look up at the young man, seeing that Eren’s eyes were looking at the figurine he had just moved. After a few seconds, the young adult looked up again, meeting the captain’s gaze and smiling determinedly at him. The captain didn’t seem impressed at all, but his eyesight still got glued to the chess board eventually, carefully planning his next approach whilst stroking one arm of the chair he was sprawled in nervously. He would never be tense when playing chess, usually, and that made Eren want to check if he was alright, but he stopped when he heard the man sigh heavily.

“What kind of shitty tactic is that?” he complained, silently adding, “Disgusting.”

“You don’t know this one just yet”, he responded and propped his elbows against the table and intertwined his fingers. Levi glared up at him for a quick second before shaking his head disapprovingly, his foot reaching for Eren’s to stomp it, but the teen was already familiar with his dirty tactics, which is why he put his legs up at the chair and pressed his knees to his chest. The captain glared.

“You seem to be avoiding the problem, Eren…” Levi silently said, stroking a pawn before carefully lifting it up and slowly moving it forward so it’d meet Eren’s. The pawns were facing each other, and were unable to move forward, Eren stared at the formation for a while, his heart thumping a bit faster. The teen glared at his pale captain who decided not to button his perfectly white shirt that night, and the skin was mocking Eren because he knew he shouldn’t be looking at it.

“I can’t just… I know it’s a trick. There’s no way you’d give your best player away and throw the match”, Eren said, his brows furrowing, “I’ve known you long enough to be able to conclude that much.”

“Oh”, the man acted surprised, “Look who remembered to turn his brain on today… Or did the years finally get to you?”

“They made me feel self-aware, and shit. Not sure if I like it or not.”

“You’ll get used to it at some point. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll soon start getting pissed again”, the man said, leaning back into his chair, never parting his eyes from Eren’s, “The frustration will drive you crazy, to the point where you won’t be able to sleep.”

“And I’ll be back tomorrow again”, Eren said, smiling a bit at the irony of the situation. There was a churn in his stomach, and ache of silence in his heart and frustration of loneliness in his soul that made him want to scream it out, but he remained silent, reading the captain’s eyes and reassuring himself, “And the day after tomorrow. And the day after that day as well…”

“We’ll die of exhaustion that way… You do know that people die in three days if they don’t sleep, right…?” the captain sighed, his hands coming up to his cravat to tie it, but decided against it as he saw that his private almost jumped out of his chair at the action, “There won’t be change. You’ll come by and I’ll make tea whilst you arrange the chess pieces. We’ll talk, we’ll play, and you’ll refuse to go back just like any other day.”

“I prefer your company.”

“I know that much, brat”, the captain said, his expression softening as that old way of talking to him escaped his lips. The familiarity of it caught both men off guard, and it brought smiles to their faces. The captain looked down to the chessboard again, leaving Eren to stare at his face once more. The teen was enamored by the way the fire lit up only parts of his sharp facial features, and how the flames seemed to dance on his skin. The dark circles under his eyes were getting worse as time progressed, but who would get prettier under such circumstances? Whose mental health wouldn’t slowly decay if they took things away from you slowly and gradually? Levi had nothing for his own anymore – nothing but the books, the chessboard, and Eren’s time deep in the night, and he wasn’t even allowed to have all of that. And he wasn’t going to have them for his lifetime. But that particular night, he seemed completely drained. Small. _Lost._

“You look tired, Levi… are you sure you want me to stay…?” Eren suddenly asked, his sight falling to the unfinished chess game that lay before them, “You don’t have to stay up that late if-“

“I don’t need your pity, Yeager”, Levi chimed in, looking back into the young brunet’s eyes softly, “Plus, I am not leaving this game unfinished.”

Eren watched the man’s soft expression for a while before nodding multiple times, putting that one strand of dark brown hair that refused to be tied up into a bun behind his ear.

“Sometimes…” Eren started, taking his other pawn and bringing it two fields up from its starting position, “…sometimes I wonder if you’re really talking about the chess game. Pawn to f4.”

Levi kept watching the man’s solemn expression for a while, surveying his face thoroughly before he finally managed to tear his sight away from the young man and slowly push the pawn in front of his bishop with his index finger to meet Eren’s pawn, blocking it from further advancing. As the pawns met, their eyes met.

“Even if you have to sacrifice your best figurine… you are not leaving this war unfinished. Simple symbolism”, Eren silently said, his hand slowly reaching towards the pawn that could move neither forwards nor backwards. He snorted, “I’d honestly like to think that you’re the strongest on the field… the queen,”, he said and looked into the petite captain’s eyes, catching his stare, “but I don’t want you be the strongest at the same time. It would mean giving your life away.”

The captain raised a brow and leaned back into his favorite chair, looking at Eren’s hand that held the white pawn in his fingers before returning his sight to Eren’s eyes that still had that old fire burning in them, somewhere.

“I joined the Corps knowing it’d mean giving my life for humanity. Never once did I intend to shy away from the possibility that I could be dead by tomorrow. You did so too. You know what it would mean, if you joined us. You lost lots of things, and knew you had more to lose, but you gave up on life knowing that perhaps, no one would have to experience such a loss ever again.”

“I know…” Eren started silently, steadily looking at the floor as the thought of Levi’s calculating stare on him made his guts turn uncomfortably, “I know you’re the same as me. You’re ready to die for freedom, and so am I. It’s uncanny, really… but… somewhere, I guess I realized that… that I don’t want you to die.”

Dead silence crept around as the teen waited for a response.

“Well, shit, Eren. Thank you.”

“You know what I mean”, the teen reprimanded, his fervent gaze meeting Levi’s once again. Eren took his bishop and placed it at a random place, secured from Levi’s brown figurines. The captain looked down again, his long, boney fingers reaching towards the queen, but he never really reached it.

“I’m not the strongest one”, the captain silently said, the young adult’s gaze still on him, “Strength is the capacity of an object to withstand great force or pressure. I can’t even escape simple human needs… Can’t even say ‘no’ to inappropriate behavior because of personal reasons I wish not to be controlled by. I’m just a pawn; first in Erwin’s, now in Hange’s hands. What happens to us won’t be decided by us alone. Our superiors will be playing the game. We will just have to go along with it – all fears ignored, all possessions lost, all emotions disregarded”, his silvery voice whispered, the bruised fingers taking the queen and pulling the figure back to its original position, next to the surrounded king that had an opening on the right, with his pawns stepping forward.

Eren’s eyes searched his brutally, the fire burning his body as his sight passed over every little detail on his face. At the end, his eyes stopped on the captain’s soft, parted lips.

“It was… four years ago, wasn’t it…?” Eren silently asked, searching for the man’s nervous eyes before moving his rook right in front of the queen, never devouring it, “I made that bet… That outrageous suggestion that if I win…”

“I’m yours”, Levi finished silently, his eyes still on Eren’s as the man showed a slight, somewhat shy smile. One of the captain’s pawns moved up by one field.

“You beat me every single time, remember? You crushed my horny teenager dreams time and time again…” Eren laughed, “And I was so desperate to win…! I kept coming back every night.”

“Until you suddenly stopped”, the captain uttered, his voice a mere trembling whisper Eren barely heard, deep hurt and regret swallowing his eyes as he recalled the moment that had them falling apart, before the man stopped acting like himself, and had lost even the last of his childish joy, and distanced himself from everybody else. Eren was still present, but so very distant…

Eren stared into his eyes for a while, a slight smile coming to his lips.

“I… guess it was too much…” the man silently said, scratching his left eyebrow. Levi’s eyes fell to the chessboard again, staring at the bishop that was already aligned to secure Eren’s victory in a few turns. Sighing, he smiled a little to himself, thinking that he might have taught Eren something about chess after all, and it wasn’t just him finally giving up. He stood at his trembling legs warily, the fool that he was, and slowly walked over to the man whom he would never be able to recognize now if they weren’t together every day, and if it weren’t for the brunet’s gentle face, and the warmth his eyes radiated towards Levi. A soldier and his captain – absurd. But without the other, they just wouldn’t be complete.

Levi’s trembling hand slowly reached for Eren, and the brunet looked up at him, patiently waiting for something to happen. It took Levi another minute before he finally managed to stroke the other’s cheek, his fingers retreating quickly at how soft Eren’s skin was. The captain’s eyes were wide and shining as he tried once again, cupping the young man’s face with his freezing hands, looking into those pools of green and blue and gray he adored so much. He was so careful, so tender, that Eren couldn’t help but to smile at him. Eren carefully put his hands on top of Levi’s, tightly, yet slowly grasping his fingers and holding them in place. Their gazes couldn’t part. Bringing their faces closer to each other, the younger man giggled, and Levi just watched him with his eyes wide open, not knowing whether what he planned to was right or wrong. Eren stretched his long neck out, making their foreheads bump together before both smiled.

“Levi…” the brunet whispered, his shy eyes shining brightly as he spoke, “…those four years… I still have left…”

“Yes”, Levi answered without having to listen to the whole question and watched the man he loved the most smile from ear to ear, the tired eyes brightening. Eren sealed the promise by reaching for the man’s lips, smiling against them as the captain’s strong hands grasped his shoulders tightly, pulling him down to grasp as much of the brunet as possible before throwing himself against the table, and pulling the shrieking man down with himself.

The game of chess scattered on the floor, ending the game in a draw.


End file.
